Today is the 25th day of Lent 2006. For 25 days, we have fasted, sacrificed, prayed more, and done more good works than we had 26 days ago. This almost marks our halfway point in this Holy Lent as well.
We come up with these great ideas on what we're able to do. I'm going to give up sodas, pray the Liturgy of the Hours (at least aspects of it), stop the little cursing I still do, go to Mass when I can around my work/class schedule, volunteer at a food pantry, stop skipping class and help more old ladies across the street. I'm going to start all of this at midnight on March 1, 2006.
I'm going cold turkey on everything. When ashes were imposed on my foreheard with the priest or minister saying "Remember man, you are dust and to dust you shall return" or "Repent, turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel", I was suddenly empowered to do all these things I had planned on doing. On Ash Wednesday, seeing all of my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ- many times, I'll see more people in church than I would see on either Christmas or Easter- I am given this superhuman, divine, all-powerful spirit of renewal and vigor.
Have you caught the error in my thought yet?
We, and myself in particular, saw this Holy Season of Lent as a chance to make right all the things I wish I didn't do. I hate that I skip class. I hate that I drink so many sodas. I wish to gain into a deeper relationship with my Creator and look to the Liturgy as a way for me to do so. I wish to pray more for my friends and family. I want to reverse my material living and give more for God. I want to do all these things.
Just because the day changes or a prayer is said, that doesn't change anything in our lives unless we're ready for that change and allow it into our lives.
In order to live the lives we wish to live, we can't wake up one morning and change everything that we wished to change. We are too much creatures of habit to allow for such a transition under normal circumstances. We have to start slow and prepare ourselves for this change. This is what Lent is- a time of preparation for the great Easter. Easter, the festum festorum, is Christ breaking the bonds of death and sin once and for all. This is a massive change! For all of human history, we have been bound by sin and death. Even for us individually, we are still born into this cycle. Easter changes all of that. Whether it was the first Easter thousands of years ago or our personal Easter, that is our baptism, this feast transforms our sin and death into rising to new and everlasting life.
This change cannot happen overnight. Just as we cannot break old habits with the change to a new day and ashes, we cannot accept this new life without preparation.
For me, I broke Lent from day one. I did not make it through Ash Wednesday without breaking at least one of my "Lenten promises". By now, I have already broken every single thing I hoped to sacrifice over these 40 days.
Why?
I wasn't prepared.
Lucky for me, I realized this by drinking a Dr. Pepper. This Lent won't be the perfect one we all imagine. I won't make this great list of things to do and do them all throughout the entire season. This Lent will be a messy one. Through self-doubt, depression and death, I will prepare myself for a greater experience of God.
Maybe next year, I'll be prepared to make a promise and keep it. Maybe, I'll be prepared to sacrifice and have a true intent behind that sacrifice.
Kraft, while maybe next year you will be "prepared," and maybe I'm an idiot and missed your point, I think in breaking all your lenten promises, you are further proving your point. No matter how "prepared" we may think we are, we will always stumble, we will always fall short. If we continue to get up and brush ourselves off, and try, try again, that is where we truly "prepare" for the glory that is Easter. The glory that is the Resurrection, the basis of all forgivness and redemption. It was Christ first who fell in death, and then showed us how to truly "get back up." I don't think the point of the sacrifices is so much to do them perfectly, while some are able to give up "fried foods" with a diligence I do not possess, the sacrifices help us to understand how truly weak we are, and how much we need Our Lord and the true beauty of His Love. He gave His life, knowing we would sin and fall, all He wants is for us to retain hope, and do as He did and Rise. Maybe "screwing up" on the sacrifices is a bigger lesson and oppurtunity then the actual sacrifices themselves?